deeper insight into these issues
When the influence of skills and abilities attained in high school was statistically
controlled, many factors associated with current study behavior revealed reliable
relationships with cumulative GPA and fall semester GPA. Of particular relevance to the theoretical framework of deliberate practice, students who indicated that they
studied alone in an environment unlikely to contain distracters, tended to perform
better both in the current semester and cumulatively. It is worth noting that study
environment was a significant predictor of performance even after accounting for
3 It should be noted that when we compared participants who completed the diary to those who did not
complete the diary, the only significant difference between the groups was that the participants who
completed the diary were more likely to report an organized approach to studying, t(86) = �3.04, p < .004.
112 E.A. Plant et al. / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 96–116
previous performance. These findings are consistent with the importance of concen-
trated, deliberate practice for predicting high levels of performance (Ericsson, 1996,
2002; Ericsson et al., 1993) and self-regulated academic learning (Zimmerman, 1998,
2002). Further, when considering cumulative GPA, the overall amount of study time
only emerged as a significant predictor of performance when the quality of the study environment and scholastic aptitude at entry to college (SAT) were included in the
regression equation. Thus, it appears that the quantity of study time may only
emerge as a reliable factor that determines performance when the quality of study
time and the student�s SAT scores are also taken into consideration. In fact, the amount of study time was negatively related to both the study environment and
the SAT scores with no reliable evidence for a correlation between study environ-
ment and SAT scores.
This pattern of results suggests that students with higher SAT scores, most likely reflecting a higher level of previously attained relevant study skills and domain-spe-
cific knowledge, can attain the same or better grades with less study time. Indepen-
dent of that effect, those who study alone in a quiet environment may study more
effectively and, therefore, may attain a comparable performance with less overall
study time than those who study in a more disruptive environment. This finding is
consistent with previous studies of deliberate practice, where many activities within
a domain, such as playing games of golf and playing music with friends are far less
effective in improving performance than solitary deliberate practice (Ericsson, 1996; Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). In fact, mere experience in a domain, such as playing
chess games, does not reliably improve chess performance once the effects of solitary
practice are accounted for (Charness et al., 1996).
The literature on deliberate practice and self-regulated learning by skilled and ex-
pert performers shows that engagement in deliberate practice and study is typically
carefully scheduled (Ericsson, 1996, 2002; Zimmerman, 1998, 2002). Consistent with
these findings our study found that the degree to which students used long-term
planning was related to their cumulative GPA. In addition, this was the case even when high-school GPA and SAT scores were included in the analyses (also see Brit-
ton & Tesser, 1991). The evidence suggests that careful organization and goal setting
created a focused approach to studying and effective monitoring of goal accomplish-
ment, supporting deliberate-practice principles.
Our analysis also replicated the influence of other factors previously documented
to influence GPA. For example, the percentage of classes attended was correlated
with participants� current and cumulative GPA. That is, students who attended a higher percentage of their classes tended to achieve higher GPAs, which is consistent with the findings of Schuman et al. (1985). These findings are also consistent with the
model of deliberate practice. Attending classes would be important for engagement
in deliberate practice, since it is in the classroom where students receive instruction
regarding what information and skills need to be studied and practiced for high lev-
els of performance. In addition, many instructors design their tests based on the
material presented during lectures. However, in the regression analyses, attendance
was only a reliable predictor of GPA prior to the entry of other factors in the regres-
sion models. The inverse relationship between attendance and hours partying may
E.A. Plant et al. / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 96–116 113
have accounted for the reduced independent influence of attendance on GPA. Be-
cause students who spent more time partying were less likely to attend their classes,
these two variables may have been tapping into the same variance in performance
and, thus, when both were included in the regressions predicting cumulative and fall
semester GPA, their independent influence was reduced. A recent study manipulated attendance experimentally in a course and found suggestive improvements in grades
and mastery of the material, even material not covered in the lectures (Shimoff &
Catania, 2001). The number of hours students worked per week for pay was also re-
lated to their cumulative and current semester GPAs. That is, students who worked
more hours per week had lower GPAs.
In sum, our study identified several characteristics of students� behavior in college that were correlated with their cumulative GPA and fall-semester GPA, even when
the past performance (high-school GPA) and level of scholastic achievement (SAT) at their entry to the college were statistically controlled. Only one of these variables,
namely study environment, had a direct relationship with the fall-semester GPA that
was not explained by the accumulated GPA in college. Our interpretation of this pat-
tern of results is that college students have established habits for studying in college,
perhaps established in part in high school, that influence their tendency to attend clas-
ses, their tendency to use long-termplanning techniques, the amount of time they spend
partying, and their involvement in part-time work. These habits will influence past
grades and the cumulative GPAwill provide an aggregate reflection of these influences in a stable manner. If there were changes in these habits during the fall semester, the
associated changes were most likely too small to allow our study to detect them.
Our current findings are also highly consistent with self-regulated learning
approaches to academic performance (Pintrich, 2000; Puustininen & Pulkkinen,
2001; Schunk & Zimmerman, 1994; Zimmerman, 1998, 2000, 2002). However, these
approaches tend to focus primarily on the motivational and cognitive factors that
increase the likelihood of active and effective learning as opposed to identifying
the characteristics of study and learning activities where increased duration of engagement leads to improved performance. Our focus on deliberate practice led
us to describe many different factors related to academic performance (GPA) and
to identify relations between characteristics and durations of study activities and per-
formance. By focusing on observed engagement in these study activities, we can
avoid the issues of the motivational and habitual factors that lead students to engage
in them. However, a full understanding of academic achievement will likely require
careful consideration of both the activities that increase the productivity and efficacy
of study time (i.e., deliberate practice) as well as the social, cognitive, and motiva- tional factors that lead certain students to engage in these effective study activities.
By combining the deliberate-practice framework and the theoretical approaches of
self-regulated learning, future work may gain deeper insight into these issues.
4.1. Limitations and future directions
Our estimated relationship between study time and GPA measures most likely re-
flects a lower bound and would increase with better estimates for study time. Our
114 E.A. Plant et al. / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 96–116
measure of study behavior using daily diaries showed that for the sub-group report-
ing that the diary week was normal and representative, there was a high relationship
(r = .75) between questionnaire reports of study and the hours of study reflected in
the diaries. For this group we found reliable correlations between diary-reported
study and fall-semester GPA. These findings suggest that the relationship between study and grades, especially in the associated semester, might be stronger when stu-